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We met at 5:30 am at the new Amtrak station in Champaign. It's much nicer than the old station. We took the usual round of "before" pictures and ran thru the checklist one more final time. As far as we could tell, nobody had forgotten anything. I've heard a lot of horror stories about Scouts arriving at Philmont without their boots or some other essential bit of gear.
The train left Champaign 10 seconds ahead of schedule, much to the surprise of all including the station staff. The trip to Chicago was uneventful. We noted that it takes 1 3/4 hr to travel the first 100 miles and an hour for the last 24 miles from Homewood. Train traffic is almost as bad as the roads in Chicago.
The weather is pleasant today. Sunny and not too hot.
We got into Union Station right about on time. Unfortunately, it turned out that "Room G" was in use today for a party, so we couldn't leave our bags there while we explored the city. We have done that in the past, and I was told on the phone just a week earlier that there would be no problem. We negotiated with the baggage room people, and were able to leave our stuff on a cart in their baggage room.
We took a bus over to Navy Pier to kill some time. The boys balked at paying $4 for one trip around the Ferris wheel, and the Children's Museum didn't appeal to them. So, we wandered around for a while and then ate lunch. Since we had plenty of time, we decided to walk back to the station. It was a nice walk thru downtown Chicago. Along the way we enjoyed the various painted cows that have been scattered around the city. We also stopped at a grocery store to pick up some spices for the trek and other consumables.
Back at Union Station we gathered with a slew of other Scouts on the way to Philmont to wait for the train. Things weren't quite a smooth on the Southwestern Chief as earlier; we got out of Chicago about 45 minutes late. Part of this was due to some switching operations where we picked up a bunch of extra freight cars. It seemed to take a while to get everything hooked up.
The staff on this train has been great, quite good natured. The conductor says that we will end up with over 135 Scouts on the train. We've picked up a number more at each stop, and there will be a bunch getting on in Kansas City. The train is apparently overbooked, and they might have to put people into the lounge car. I guess that airlines aren't the only ones that overbook.
I just remembered that I wanted to bring a bunch of Prairielands Council patches to trade. I forgot. There was just too much going on this last week.
We seemed to spend an awful lot of time in Kansas City. We left about 50 minutes late and then did a whole bunch of twiddling to pick up a couple of new freight cars. We also picked up a bunch more Scouts in KC. The staff thought that there wouldn't be room, but apparently they found seats for everyone.Bringing food on train highly advised. Staff on the train is much more amiable this trip.
We wandered around Chicago tired and aimlessly, but the food packed for the train was good.
We rode on a train. We went to Chicago. We went to Navy Pier, we went to Chicago. We went to Marshall Field. We rode the train.
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